


gravity's collapse

by rin7rin



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BAMF Haruno Sakura, College, F/M, Ino and Sakura are caught in parallel love triangles..., Jealous Kakashi, Jealous Sasuke, Love Triangle (sort of), Of-age, Past Relationships, Professor Hatake, Slow Burn, gets steamy later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-01 09:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18332903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rin7rin/pseuds/rin7rin
Summary: Fresh from a breakup with her high school sweetheart, Sakura is trying to make it through her last year of college. Fresh from a scarred career as a police officer investigating the Uchiha crime family, Kakashi is trying to make it as a biochemistry professor. The two of them are trying to leave their pasts behind, but when they find themselves inextricably drawn together, will they collapse under the weight of their tangled histories? Or will their forbidden romance burn with the force of an expanding star? [College AU]





	1. the stone bench

The day before the semester starts, Konoha feels on fire with summer’s end.

Naruto comes to visit early in the morning to beat the heat, as does Ino. Ino was expected, but Naruto shoots Sakura the text only twenty minutes before he actually shows up at her apartment. She can’t bring herself to be annoyed with him—it is, after all, better than climbing in through her bedroom window unannounced, as he did when they were kids—but she also can’t help the little bump of nervousness that jangles her heart.

He has been traveling all summer with his family friend, Jiraiya. He has not seen her since she broke up with Sasuke.

She prays to the gods that he will be clever for once and keep his big mouth shut.

Things kick off normally enough as the three of them settle on Sakura’s shaded balcony: the only perk of her tiny studio apartment, granted to her by the university. Ino makes lemonade—too sour, as always—and they lounge like cats in the pale morning heat, Naruto with his shirt off, the two girls barely-clad themselves. Ino suns herself in the sole lounge chair while Sakura and Naruto sit on a blanket and catch up. He talks about his travels to America, the things he saw over the summer. She tells him about her internship with her great-aunt Tsunade at the hospital, and her TA position starting tomorrow: not with Professor Kurenai, as she’d expected, but with a new instructor while the former is on maternity leave. She talks about how lucky she is that the TA job gives her housing like this—and pointedly avoids discussing the mad rush to find a place to live, triggered by the messy breakup four months ago. Ino, sensing danger, stretches lazily and begins to bore Naruto with complaints about her perpetual on-and-off relationship with Shikamaru, who went to high school with all of them and now goes to another university in Suna.

Naruto listens politely, and seems suitably distracted from whatever dangerous topics he might have been on the verge of broaching. His broad, tanned knee bumps comfortably against Sakura’s, and looking at it, she feels a clumsy stutter of love for him. He has grown up, her best friend.

Then Naruto looks at her with his blue, blue eyes and begins, “Ne, Sakura-chan…”

She knows that look and that phrase, and begins to busy herself with picking up the lemonade glasses for refills. “No, Naruto. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Naruto frowns, but he persists anyway. “Can you at least tell me what happened?” He glances at Ino, who huffs and brings her magazine to her face. “The bastard won’t talk to me about it, but…” He chews his lip, as if debating how much he should say. “But I can tell he’s _miserable_ without you, Sakura-chan. He looks like shit. Like he doesn’t eat or sleep. He walks out of the room whenever I say your name. Do you guys not even talk anymore?”

Sakura is on the verge of telling him no, she does not talk to Sasuke anymore, even though she has spent virtually her entire life in his presence, and their not talking leaves a gaping, stinging hole in her like she’s missing a tooth. She wants to tell him that yes, she’s not surprised that Sasuke walks out of a room whenever she’s mentioned, just as she has the urge to leave the balcony with his name on the dry and arid air now. She wants to tell him she will not talk about it, not even to him, but she’s saved by Ino saying instead: “Sasuke is an ass, Naruto. Of course Sak’s never going to talk to him again.”

This she says with a pointed look, icy blue eyes tilted over designer sunglasses. Naruto opens his mouth again, presumably to defend his other best friend, so Sakura cuts in, once and for all: “It got too complicated, Naruto. His dad never liked me, but he had all of this pressure to please his parents after Itachi left. It was just… too much.”

She says this in a voice that she learned from Tsunade: a tone brimming with power, one that indicates the conversation is over. Sea-green eyes meet sky-blue. It is, of course, not the full story, but she knows she will never tell the full story to poor Naruto, torn between his two most important people and compelled to defend both of them with his life. No matter how furious she is with Sasuke, she will never hurt Naruto like that. She will never force him to share her pain.

Ino snaps her gum decisively. “Let’s talk about something else. Naruto, have you grown some balls and asked Hinata on a date yet?”

This seems to do the trick: soon the morning air is filled with Naruto’s sheepish, raspy laughter and Ino’s indignant squawks. Sakura is careful to smile and laugh along, as if the topic has been forgotten—but she can’t help but notice that Ino’s bitter lemonade now tastes sweet in comparison.

#

 

After Naruto leaves, commenting that he has to do some last-minute back-to-school shopping, Ino turns to Sakura and shoots her a look. “You okay, Forehead?”

Sakura sighs and flops back against the sun-baked ground. “Yeah. Thanks, Ino. You were a big help.”

“I always am.” The other girl says it without smugness: she has always had Sakura’s back, and Sakura has always had hers. “But I just want to ask: _have_ you talked to him?”

Sakura shakes her head, smiling thinly. “Never. Not even a text.”

Ino’s pale foot extends from the lounge chair to pat Sakura on the shoulder. “That’s my girl.”

#

 

Sakura goes to campus the next day to scope out her classroom locations and plan her routes. Fastidious as ever, she doesn’t want to risk getting lost or showing up late—especially to the Biochemistry class she’s TAing, which her entire living situation depends on. She can’t get off on the wrong foot with the new professor, she tells herself. Hatake Kakashi, the email read. He’s an unknown variable in a tenuous situation: instead of kind-hearted Kurenai, she could be stuck with a stodgy old fart, or a tyrant like Tsunade. She has to take every step possible to impress and delight him.

After her recon, she heads to her favorite stone bench—tucked away in the Arts Quad—intent on eating her lunch bento before heading to her shift at the coffee shop. She tells herself not to look at her phone as she walks. Not only is she trying to be more mindful, to _live in the moment_ as Lee is always ranting—she does not want to look at her empty inbox and think of Sasuke or his texts.

To her surprise, she finds someone already sitting at the stone bench, his elbows resting carefully on the cracked and speckled surface. Sakura takes in an unruly shock of silver hair and a dark-eyed, fine-boned face shrouded mostly by a medical mask: the kind patients wear to avoid spreading infection. One broad, strong hand has an unlit cigarette dangling between the long fingers: the other holds a lurid orange book with faded print on the cover.

Sakura sets her bento on the far end of the bench and says, before she can stop herself: “ _Icha Icha_ , really?”

Half-lidded, dark grey eyes flick to her, both lazy and appraising; the man doesn’t react as she stands over him. Sakura notices for the first time that a sharp scar stretches over his right eye, from his brow and down into the cheek of his mask. An older scar, she surmises—made by a knife.

The man seems to take her in before drawling: “What’s wrong with _Icha Icha_?”

Sakura represses a shiver at the surprising deepness of his voice: something about it is dark and chocolatey, smooth and pleasant. Not what she was expecting from someone reading smut in public. She gestures to the bench and says, “Mind if I sit?”

The man gestures idly, as if he actually owns the bench and is granting her a boon by letting her touch it. Sakura sits, unwraps her bento, then says, “There’s too much purple prose. And way too much focus on female pleasure rather than the man’s.”

She swears she hears the silver-haired man snort, but when Sakura looks at him, his face is just as unreadable under his mask. “You’ve read it, then,” is all he says, lightly. When she furrows her brows at him, he adds: “I was expecting you to harangue me about reading it at all, but it seems you just have a better alternative in mind.”

Sakura sniffs. “I don’t _harangue_ people about anything,” she replies, pushing away thoughts of nagging Naruto’s ear off and keeping their general friend group in line. She snaps a pair of take-out chopsticks and begins to pick at her meal. “And yes, I took a class about erotic literature to fill my English credits. And yes, _Icha Icha_ is at the bottom of my list. Even though I know Jiraiya-sama personally.”

The man sits a little straighter in his seat: this, of all things, impresses him. “You know the author?”

Sakura tosses her chin-length pink hair over her shoulder. “I’ve seen his _outlines_.”

They talk a bit more, comfortably, about her acquaintance with Jiraiya and even jokingly throw jabs at each other’s taste in erotica. Sakura, during it all, feels both a pleasant ease in his presence as well as a squirming discomfort: why does she feel like she’s known this man for a long time, when they’ve never met before? She’s never been one to just make friends with people right off the bat, not like Naruto—but something about this guy just feels _comfortable_.

She tells herself not to overthink it. After four months of grieving, she could use a little light-hearted fun with a stranger who knows nothing about her or her past.

When she’s halfway-done with her meal, the silver-haired stranger shifts to reach into his pocket for something. A lighter. He’s about to bring the flame to his cigarette when Sakura says with a frown, “Aren’t you sick?”

When the man stares at her, she gestures to his mask. The man flips the lid of the lighter to put it out again and says, a little awkwardly: “Yeah, I’ve got a cold.”

Sakura levels him with a flat stare. “Then smoking’s only going to make it worse. Do you want to destroy your lung tissue permanently? Put that away!”

Chagrined, her new friend actually obeys, tucking both cigarette and lighter back into his pocket. She thinks he’s grinning ruefully under the mask, by the way his eyes crinkle. “Sorry,” he says, the timbre of a hidden laugh in his voice. “Now do you see why I thought you were going to be bossy?”

Sakura rolls her eyes. “You sure clocked me.” Remembering clocks, she suddenly checks her watch: twenty minutes until her shift starts. Rising, she throws her chopsticks in the trash, and barely catches the man saying: “Are you a doctor, then?”

Sakura turns. “Huh?”

“Are you a doctor?” the man repeats. His eyes glint mischievously. “Should I be coming to you with all of my ailments from now on?”

_Is he… flirting with me_? Sakura wonders, with a rare flash of intuition. Then she dismisses the thought. There’s no way. She grins back at him and answers, “I’m not a doctor _yet_. I’ll be going to medical school next year, after I graduate.”

He puts his masked chin in hand as he watches her pack up. “One whole year of having you to myself, then.”

Sakura laughs. “Maybe if you quit smoking,” she tells him with a wink and a smile. “I don’t take on patients who make my job harder than it has to be.”

He seems about to answer when she gets a call from Kiba at the coffee shop, asking for a favor before she runs to her shift. By the time Sakura realizes she’s hurried away without even a glance backwards at her new bench partner, he’s cleared out. She walks away wondering if that means she has to improve her bedside manner. She’s never had someone just straight-up run away.

#

She forgets all about the nameless masked stranger by the time she finishes her five-hour shift, walks home, showers, prepares her book bag for class, falls face-forward into cottony sleep, and then wakes up again. When she reaches for her phone to shut off her alarm, she sees with a jolt that a message is waiting for her—and her mind, again, leaps unbidden to Sasuke.

But it’s just Ino, wishing her luck with TAing, and Sakura smiles and goes about her morning without any particular thoughts of any man: neither her ex nor her new smoker friend nor anyone. She only spares the latter another thought when she passes by the stone bench, and then again when she sees his figure standing in the hallway in front of her class, rummaging through his own messenger bag.

Sakura smiles as she approaches the man from behind. He’s tall, so tall that his shock of silver hair nearly brushes the low ceiling: she realizes now that the top of her head only reaches his chest. Could he be actually _taking_ this class? Some devilish part of herself cackles at the thought of being the TA this older student has to answer to.

“Hey, it’s you,” she begins to say—then freezes when he turns to look at her.

The man isn’t wearing his medical mask, and he’s… _hot_.

_Oh, holy shit,_ the devilish part of Sakura whispers; she has to actively keep her mouth from falling open. Sharp cheekbones, straight, aristocratic nose, muscled forearms under rolled-up sleeves—oh _hell._ She was conversing with the most handsome man she’s ever encountered, Uchiha Shisui be damned, and she didn’t even know it!...

“Uh,” Sakura says. Then she swallows and recovers herself. “Are… do you… remember… me?”

She doesn’t know why she says this. She only thinks that maybe someone who looks like him meets a dozen infatuated girls a day.

The man raises a brow at her: only the tiny quirk of his mouth belies his amusement. “Fellow smut reader,” he intones dryly. “I think I remember.”

Sakura feels a flush beginning to climb her throat. “Are you…” She gestures dumbly at the door. “Are you taking this class? Biochem?”

He tilts his head. “You could say that…”

Then he fishes whatever he was looking for out of his sleek leather messenger bag: a set of keys. Sakura gawks at them. Now why would he have those?

The man turns back to the classroom door and begins to unlock it. Sakura makes a muffled noise—does he have permission from the professor? Is he another TA?—but all of her questions are answered when another man appears at the end of the hallway, looking flustered.  

“Kakashi!” he hisses, running up to him with a folder crammed with papers. “You left your syllabi in the copy room again!”

“Mah, sorry, Iruka, I was standing there watching my copies when a cat appeared in the windowsill and—”

“And nothing, Hatake! How many times do I have to tell you…”

Sakura feels the earth opening a chasm under her feet; her stomach plummets like she’s caught in free-fall, gravity dragging at her heart and lungs. The blood drains from her face.

“Hatake… Kakashi?” she croaks. The two men turn to stare at her, but she’s too busy wanting to crawl in a hole and die to take much notice. _Professor Kurenai will be replaced this semester as she's placed on maternity leave,_ the email read. _Your new instructor will be Professor Hatake Kakashi._

He’s her **_professor_**?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did Sasuke and Sakura break up? Why is Kakashi actually on-time for once? Who is he and where did Itachi go? Why hasn't Naruto asked Hinata out yet? It's a mystery!
> 
> If Sakura seems a bit distant in this chapter, it's intentional. I wanted to portray her as lost in her feelings, sort of dazed and detached from things, viewing herself and the moment almost from the outside-in. This fades as time goes on and she begins to heal from the breakup with Sasuke, but that's where her headspace is in the beginning. Don't worry, she's going to get back to smart-as-a-whip and sassy Sakura in no time--and she's going to kick someone's ass at least twice in the story! You'll also find out more about her past with the Konoha gang and growing up with Sasuke and Naruto and their families. 
> 
> Also, chapters will alternate between her POV, Kakashi's POV, and probably Sasuke and maybe Ino's POV!
> 
> This is my very first fanfic--ever--so any comments or encouragement would really help! Thank you for reading!


	2. the classroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kakashi is an idiot, and he knows it.

Kakashi has always had a strong instinct for danger.

It served him well during his stint in the military as a youth, then in the police academy and onward into his career as a beat cop. It saved his life numerous times when he was a detective, getting into gunfights with yakuza thugs and infiltrating international crime syndicates.

He never thought he’d need it here, now, as a professor of biochemistry at a sleepy university in a nice part of Konoha. But when the girl with improbable pink hair walks up to his table, bold as daylight, and banters with him about erotica and flirts a little with him (he thinks: his skills are rusty in that department) and smiles at him with those bright green eyes, his heart stirs a little in a way that he does not like. She is _attractive_ in a hard and glittering way he has never seen in another woman. So beautiful that he can’t look away, so that he finds himself leaning closer to hear her, as if being dragged by a magnet—and made of such sharp angles he feels like he’s going to cut his eyes by looking at her too long. And the klaxons raise in his mind: _this is dangerous territory you’re treading into, Kakashi._

Probably a stupid thing to think, he tells his mind; what’s a little harmless flirting in broad daylight?

But his body betrays him. The longer he sits at that bench, talking to her and inhaling that enticing scent of blossoms and honey wafting from her neck, the more his fingers itch to touch her. To graze her knuckles accidentally, or to reach out and brush that impossible hair.

He bites his tongue against the instinct—he refuses to acknowledge it as a _desire_ —of course. Awkward and eccentric as Kakashi might be, he knows what’s creepy and what’s appropriate. So he pulls out his lighter just to give his hands something else to do.

When she calls him out on it, he can’t help but feel even more intrigued. Most people are intimidated by him, by the scar—but she seems like she doesn’t even notice it. He likes that.

 _Danger,_ his mind warns again. She’s still a student, far too young for him. He hears his own tongue saying foolish things— _of course she’s not a doctor_ —and holds back an internal groan.

When she walks away, he tells himself that that’s the end of it, that they’ll never see each again. And even if they do, it’s not like they’ve established a relationship beyond two strangers talking on a bench.

But then she shows up at his classroom door at the time he’s expecting to meet his new TA, and his knees go soft and his heart hurtles into his mouth—and Kakashi thinks again, _I’m in danger._

He’s thinking it, as a monk’s mantra, even as he leans his hip against his desk and watches the girl flush up to the roots of her hair. It’s a very fetching look on her, a part of him thinks idly—and then the part screaming about danger hushes it harshly. He snaps back into the conversation just as his TA finishes sputtering, “—and if I’d known you were a _professor_ , I wouldn’t have talked to you about _porn_ —”

Kakashi holds up his hand. “Sakura,” he says. He knows that’s her name from the email he read from the department, just moments ago. The girl’s mouth shuts with an audible click. “It’s not a big deal. It was a nice way to meet, actually. We can be friends.”

 _Friends?_ his mind yells at him. _What are you, an idiot? You’re supposed to be a professor, her supervisor—_

Sakura seems to be thinking along the same lines. “Er, sure,” she says, blinking rapidly. It’s funny how clearly her face broadcasts her emotions. “…Friends. If that’s what you want, Professor Hatake.”

He sort of hates the sound of that title, how old it makes him sound—his friends among the faculty just call him Kakashi, and he hasn’t yet taught a class—but he lets it slide. It does a good job of reestablishing the boundaries he’s done such a good job of wrecking. He clears his throat and says, “I’ll be straightforward with you about two things, Sakura. One: this is my first semester. I’ve never taught before, so I’ll need all the help I can get.”

That silences her. For just a moment. Then she says, “What were you doing before?”

 _Straight and to the point, this one,_ Kakashi thinks. He squelches the feeling of like that burgeons at the fact and says, keeping his voice steady: “I was a police officer. A detective.”

Sakura’s whole face brightens. “Here in Konoha? Did you know—” For a moment her expression clouds, but she forges onwards: “—someone named Uchiha Itachi?”

 _Now how does she know Itachi?_ First Jiraiya, and now the infamous prodigy of Konoha’s Precinct 7. “We were in the same unit. We worked closely together for years. How do you know him?”

Sakura hesitates, biting her lip. Kakashi tries not to stare. “He’s the older brother of…” She looks away. “…of someone I used to know.”

For a moment, silence reigns, and the two of them just stand there, staring at each other. Kakashi’s mind is whirring. The prestigious Uchiha clan numbers many, but he’s never heard Itachi mention a younger sibling. Then again, he knows the detective parted with his family on bad terms, after discovering their father’s more criminal connections as a teen… he hasn’t spoken with his family since, not since Itachi left to become a police officer. The family—which Kakashi privately believes is more mafia than business—has branded him a traitor ever since.

He’s shaken out of these political thoughts by the sound of Sakura clearing her throat, shifting a little from foot to foot. “Anyway, Professor—yes, I’ll help you any way I can. We’ll make you the most-liked professor ever.”

Kakashi chuckles slightly. “Well, I don’t necessarily care about being _well-liked_ ,” he remarks, crinkling his eyes. “Not if it’s anyone but you, Sakura-chan.”

Immediately he imagines giving his brain a swift kick in the ass. What is _wrong_ with him?

Sakura, thankfully, doesn’t seem to notice his cheesy lapse. She smiles a little and says, “What was the second thing you were going to say?”

“Ah.” Kakashi lifts a hand sheepishly. “The thing is… I have this bad habit…”

“Your smoking?”

“No… it’s more like…” He turns his eyes heavenward, still maintaining nonchalance. “…more like chronic lateness.”

She spends the next half hour yelling at him for this—she takes punctuality very, very seriously, it seems—and then they take another half hour to go over lesson plans and talk about general policies. Sakura has lost her fear of him fast, Kakashi notes with amusement—or at least her embarrassment about the way they met—and she turns swift and businesslike at the prospect of work. They’ve opened the door to let the students in (on time, Kakashi notes with dismay, setting a precedent) when she turns to him with a smile and says, “You’ve got this, Professor Hatake.”

 _Oh,_ Kakashi thinks, feeling a little like he’s falling into a dream. _I’m in danger._

# 

His first class ever goes well enough, Kakashi thinks. It lasted only fifteen minutes, with Sakura passing out the syllabi and the students reading silently to themselves. He plans to go hard on them, of course—it’s the best way to learn—but before the semester started he’d contemplated leaving most (all) of the paperwork to his poor TA. Now he’s going to have to reevaluate his plans.

When the students have flooded out—he’s never going to remember all of their names, he thinks—Sakura turns back to him and exclaims, “You did great!”

“Sakura,” he says dryly, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Maybe it was a mistake to tell her it was his first time. “All we did was read the syllabus.”

“Still, though.” She makes a flexing motion. “I could tell they liked you. All the girls were gawking at your face.”

For a moment he thinks she’s made a tasteless comment about his scar—then he realizes, from the very faint blush on her cheeks as she turns to repack her bag, that she means his students found him _attractive_. That Sakura finds him attractive, at least on some level.

The knowledge sparks a warmth in his belly, spreading rapidly outwards. It drives him to step forward, unconsciously, until he’s leaning closer to Sakura and putting a hand out to lean against her desk. Sakura looks up at him, blinks—and then goes very, very still. Even her eyelashes are pink, he notices—long and curling against her cheek like petals. It can’t be dye, then.

“And you?” Kakashi asks, his voice lower and huskier than he’s ever remembered hearing it. “Were you… gawking?”

He was certainly trying not to stare at her for the duration of the session, certainly trying to keep his eyes from wandering over to her as he paced the front of the classroom. He was definitely not noticing the shadow of her cleavage at the crease of her blouse, or her slim, muscled legs folded together under her tight skirt. Her ankles, he definitely didn’t notice, are tapered and attractive and trim.

He hears a slight hitch in Sakura’s breath as her eyes dart up to his face, flickering down to his lips. She tenses imperceptibly, then says, “Why are you asking… Professor?”

He pulls away at that: the cold reminder of his title. Clearing his throat, Kakashi says, “I’ll see you on Wednesday, Sakura.”

Then he turns and flees—as slowly and casually as his long legs can take him.

#

“So,” Rin says over her glass of whiskey neat: “How was your first day?”

Kakashi stubs his cigarette in a nearby ash tray; he doesn’t drink anymore. His hands cringe away from the surface of the sticky bar. “It was fine. Nothing of note.”

Which isn’t true, of course, but he’s not going to tell Rin of all people that he’s attracted to—and flirted badly, like an idiot, with!—his student TA, at least ten years his junior. He thinks she’d throttle him.

Rin tilts her head. “Mm,” she says, surveying him skeptically over the rim of her glass. Then she looks over at Genma, talking to Asuma by the pinball machine in the corner. “And how did your date go with Genma’s friend?”

“I’m sure she had a lovely time.”

“Oh?”

“…with whoever she picked up after I didn’t show.”

Rin’s face clouds with brief and terrible anger, and she leans forward to smack Kakashi’s arm. The wedding band on her finger glints with the action. “Kakashi!”

He holds his hand up, placating. “I never asked to be set up on those blind dates, Rin.”

The doctor scowls, the expression stretching the tattoos on her cheeks. “You didn’t need to ask. Gen just wants you to be happy, to find someone.” She looks away. “We all do.”

He knows she’s including Obito in that _we,_ and feels a sharp pang in his chest, not unlike what he felt when Sakura first smiled at him. Only this is something infinitely sadder, something that threatens to burn a hole right through him. Like acid reflux or a hot coal in his heart.

He turns back to stare at the darkened wood of the bar. It’s been a year since his partner was killed in action, and he doesn’t know who aches about his death more: Rin, Obito’s wife, or Kakashi, the man who was forced to watch him die. He thinks again about Sakura mentioning knowing an Uchiha and feels bile climb into his throat.

He nods back towards Genma again, just to change the subject. “Did you hear he has a new girlfriend?”

Rin makes a droll expression. “I’ve met her. She’s a bit young for him, but I like her spunk.”

“I’m just glad I’m not roommates with him anymore. The things I heard in the dead of night…”

Rin smacks his arm again. “It’s better than living in that dark cave you dwell in with your dogs. You are getting out to see the sunlight, aren’t you?”

“I have to go to work, don’t I?”

“You are such an idiot sometimes.” Suddenly she breaks off and swivels in her chair, her eyes gleaming in that way they do when she has juicy gossip to sink her teeth into. “Speak of the devil—there’s Gen’s new girlfriend now!”

Kakashi looks. He sees the long, pale-blond hair of a statuesque twenty-something, dressed in high-end clothes and tottering over on heels to greet Genma, who slings an arm over her shoulder. Rin snorts and makes a comment about European blood, but he’s looking at the girl for only a moment before his attention is pulled, magnet-like, to the entrance of the bar from which the blond just came. Someone’s standing there, looking slightly uncomfortable. Someone dressed in a simpler light jacket and black jeans. Someone with rose-petal pink hair.

Kakashi feels his throat tighten.

“Oh,” Rin comments lightly. “It looks like Ino came with a friend.”

Kakashi feels his palms begin to sweat as Sakura spots him, pink-glossed lips parting slightly in surprise.

Kakashi’s instinct for danger has always served him well, and right now it’s going off like he’s about to fight for his life.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told y'all this was going to be a slow burn.


	3. the bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura and Kakashi flirt with their hands, and rumors fly.

Ino puts her fists on her hips and glares at Sakura. “What’s wrong?”

Sakura doesn’t look up from wiping the coffee shop’s main counter. “Hm?”

“You’ve been out of it the last few days. What’s wrong?”

It’s after closing for the Konoha Café, and Ino has stopped by to catch up with Sakura and nab a few baked treats that will go stale overnight (despite her complaints that they will go straight to her thighs). Normally Sakura enjoys the company when it’s her turn to close, but now she inwardly groans. Ino can always sniff out when something’s on her mind, like a bloodhound after the scent of prey.

She scrubs a bit harder with the washcloth in her hands to conceal the mad blush on her cheeks. How to explain that she flirted with her professor on the first day of class, that a flash of heat went through her body when he only _leaned_ towards her—that she’s been plagued by dreams about what would have happened if she’d only stretched up on her toes to brush his lips?...

She wants to dunk her head in the sink full of cold water behind her. She’s being stupid, Sakura knows. Latching onto the first man she’s been attracted to since Sasuke, even though there’s no way on God’s green earth he could actually find her as—well, sexy—as she finds him. She can _not_ let Ino know what a freaking idiot she is—or that her midriff burns at night when she thinks of her _professor_!

“It’s nothing,” she manages to squeak as she finishes with the wiping and moves to the register. “Honestly, Ino, sometimes you’re too nosy for your own good.”

Her friend eyes her beadily, but says nothing for the moment. Sakura knows she wants to persist; Ino is on the outs with Shikamaru again after hearing he’s been seeing some other blond student in Suna, and she usually escapes her problems by diving into Sakura’s. Finally she straightens in her chair and says, “It’s Sasuke, isn’t it?”

Sakura makes a face, but allows the assumption to pass. It’s better than revealing the alternative.

Ino stands decisively. “Okay. We’re going out.”

Sakura looks at her with wide eyes. “What?”

Ino points at her. “You heard me. Out! We’re going to get you laid, and you’re going to forget all about chicken-haired Assface Uchiha.”

“Ino!” Sakura takes her keys from the hook on her belt and moves to the café’s light switches to turn off the power for the night. “I can’t just—you can’t—”

Her friend rolls her eyes even as she hooks her arm around Sakura’s. “Don’t be such a prude, Sak. It’s not like you’re a virgin.”

_Yes, but it’s different when it’s someone who’s not Sasuke,_ Sakura thinks but doesn’t say. Knowing she has no choice in the matter, she says weakly: “What did you have in mind?”

Ino grins triumphantly. “You know that older guy I told you about? Genma?”

“Sure.”

“He’s going to be at a bar tonight with his friends. No Naruto there, no Konoha Twelve. You can just hook up with a hot older guy and no one will be the wiser!”

_No one will leak the news back to Sasuke,_ Sakura knows she means, though why she should continue to care about that eludes her. Ino is right, of course, that their friend group can get a little incestuous at times: everyone has dated someone else at some point, or at least crushed on someone else, and gossip travels very, very fast. She heaves a sigh and says, “You were planning this when you came here, weren’t you?”

Ino gives her a peck on the cheek. “Yes, and?”

“Ugh, I hate you.”

So they go, arm-in-arm into the warm and humid Konoha night, with Ino dressed to the nines (how did she not notice that?) and Sakura in her rather plain work clothes. Despite her protests, Sakura thinks to herself that this might not be a bad idea after all. If she can find a bedmate for a quick romp for the night, maybe she can get rid of these inappropriate thoughts about Professor Hatake. If she can calm her hormones—and that’s all they are, she tells herself, just loneliness and hormones—then maybe she won’t squirm around at night dreaming about his hands on her hips. His tongue on places it really shouldn’t be.

_Oh, hell,_ Sakura thinks. She’s really in deep. And she vacillates by the hour whether or not Professor Hatake was decidedly flirting with her. Maybe it’s just a part of his personality. Maybe he’s testing her, teasing her to see if she’ll get flustered. Sakura doesn’t know, and she wavers on whether or not she wants to find out.

_No, no,_ she tells herself. _Get ahold of yourself, woman! You’re not some horny monster who’s going to jump his bones. You’re Haruno Sakura. Apprentice to Tsunade and practically homeless without this TA gig! You can **not** fuck it up!_

Ino flicks her ear. “You’re not listening, Forehead!”

Sakura shakes her head. “Sorry, Pig. How’d you meet this guy, again? Isn’t he a cop?”

“He certainly has cop muscles,” Ino replies, waggling her eyebrows. Then she tosses her hair. “And I have my ways. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. His friends are hot. You just take your pick and have a nice time.”

“How generous,” Sakura drawls, just as they reach the bar and Ino pushes her way in.

The blond leaves her standing by the entrance as she locks on to Genma and strides over, calling his name loudly. Sakura stays by the door, taking in the place: she’s never been that comfortable with bars, and she wants to get a feel for her surroundings before diving in to find a willing partner to lead into an Uber for the night.

She looks towards Genma first, whom she’s never met before. He’s good-looking enough, though more down-to-earth than Ino’s usual tastes: tan skin and long hair, a toothpick dangling rogueishly from his mouth. Ino’s draped herself over him with the determination of a woman who’s trying to forget that her heart is broken. Sakura winces. She really should have taken more time to talk to her about Shikamaru.

Then she looks at the bar, where she’ll probably need to order a liberal drink—or two—to work up her nerves for this. Then she freezes, and she feels like all of the air’s been sucked from her lungs.

Professor Hatake is there.

Sakura bites back the urge to turn around and leave the bar right then and there. It would only make things more awkward tomorrow in class, where he’d approach her and ask why she bolted at the first sight of him. What’s the normal protocol here? Should she approach him? Would that be appropriate for a TA seeing her professor out on the town with another woman at his side?

He’s seen her now, his grey eyes locked onto her with an intensity that makes Sakura’s stomach quiver. Almost against her will, she finds herself being drawn towards the bar, towards him. She tells herself she’ll say hi, order a drink, then flee.

She registers the face of the woman with him just moments before Kakashi opens his mouth to speak. Nohara Rin, she remembers with a flash of recognition. A doctor at Tsunade-baa-chan’s hospital. She’d shadowed her for a few hours during her summer internship. Hadn’t she heard the woman mention her late husband?

She drags her eyes from Rin’s wedding ring just as Kakashi says, too casually for the situation: “Sakura. What a surprise to see you here.”

Sakura swallows. Forces herself to look at him. His face is calm, though he wears a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. And the set of his shoulders is tense. He can’t know that she’s been dreaming about him for the past few nights, can he?

“Professor Hatake,” she manages. She’s proud to realize that her voice seems just as calm as his. Then she turns to Rin and bows slightly. “Dr. Nohara!”

Rin’s tattooed face has broken out into a genuine smile. “Sakura-chan!” she exclaims. “What are you doing here?” Then her eyes narrow. “Are you old enough to drink?”

Both Kakashi and Sakura snort. “I’m twenty-two, Dr. Nohara,” she says with a grin.

Rin waves the title away. “I’m just making sure! I don’t want to have to report anything to Tsunade-sama.” Then she glances between the two of them. “You two know each other?”

Sakura looks at Kakashi. From the half-lidded look he gives her, loaded with meaning, she surmises it’s best not to reveal the nature of their relationship. “We’ve met… briefly,” is all she says with a bright smile.

Kakashi doesn’t say anything.

Rin raises her eyebrows, looks between the two of them again, then takes her drink and rises. “I should go say hello to Ino-chan,” she notes, then leaves—though not before shooting another pointed glance at Kakashi. He ignores it and slowly swivels around in his stool to face the bar.

Sakura hesitantly takes Rin’s vacated seat next to him, unsure if Kakashi is inviting her to sit or rejecting her. She folds her arms across the sticky bar, conscious of her unflattering work clothes, and says, “So…”

Kakashi stares steadily forward, gazing at the shelves holding bottles of expensive liquor. “So.”

She steals a sideways glance at him, and tries to ignore the hard thump of her heart high in her chest. His profile is almost _noble_ , his features strong and defined even in the dim lighting of the bar. She tries not to trace the line of his throat, the silvery downy fuzz at the nape of his neck with her eyes. “So… how do you know Dr. Nohara?”

“Her husband was my partner on the force,” he says curtly. He says it in the same tone that she used when she didn’t want to talk about Sasuke with Naruto.

Sakura fidgets a bit in her chair. “Ah.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes more, pressed together in a quiet so oppressive that Sakura feels afraid to even order her drink. Finally something breaks, because Kakashi gives her a brittle smile and says, “What are you drinking?”

“Sex on a beach,” Sakura says promptly—then feels heat flood her entire face. She resists putting her head on the bar and groaning.

But it punctures the awkward silence between them, because Kakashi smirks and lifts a finger to signal the bartender. When Sakura gets her drink, she takes a sip and quips, “I take it you’re supposed to be Genma’s hot friend?”

When Kakashi turns in his chair to look at her, Sakura flushes, but continues bravely, “My friend—uh, Ino. She dragged me here with promises of… well, you know.”

Kakashi looks down at his drink, but Sakura swears she can see a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He twirls a finger idly in the wet ring left behind by her glass and says, “I take it you’re single, then.”

Something flares in Sakura’s stomach, and she takes a deep breath to try and quell it. “I am,” she says slowly. “What about you?”

Kakashi smiles at her sidelong, sly. “I am,” he concedes, his voice deep and rich with laughter.

Sakura can’t help but smile back, more shyly than she would like. She looks down at his broad hand on the bar, the knuckles scarred and strong, and feels the strange urge to reach out and cover it with hers. As if knowing what she’s thinking, Kakashi slowly, casually extends a pinkie—just enough so that it barely touches the tip of hers where her hand rests on the warm tabletop.

Even that contact alone sends thunder through Sakura’s whole body. She holds herself very still, as if being brushed up against by a wild animal that she doesn’t want to scare. They sit there, the tips of their pinkies touching just like that, for several moments.

Finally Sakura has to break the silence thickening in her throat—charged and markedly different from the awkward one that befell them just moments ago. “It feels weird,” she begins, then clears her throat and tries again. “It’s weird that—we keep running into each other like this.”

Kakashi tilts his head to the side in agreement. “It is.”

She wants to huff: one day he seems so talkative and flirtatious, and now he seems so cool and aloof. If not for their hands lying together on the countertop, she’d think he was hot-and-cold—just like someone else she once knew. It seems she has a type.

_Stop,_ Sakura tells herself. _Your professor is not your type!_ Out loud she says, “First the bench, then class… now the bar… how is it that we keep showing up in the same places, when we never ran into each other before?”

Kakashi looks into her eyes, and she swears that his gaze is a bit softer than it was moments ago. “Law of attraction,” he says, shrugging.

Now it’s Sakura’s turn to smirk. “Attraction?”

Kakashi tsks at her. “Get your head out of the gutter, Haruno,” he says, though he’s grinning. “I’m talking about the universal laws, pseudo-science. Things that we think about tend to be attracted into our lives by the force of our thinking about them.”

Sakura leans a little closer to him: close enough that she can smell the dark amber scent of his clothes. Sandalwood and smoke. “So you’ve been thinking about me?”

Kakashi turns to survey her, and the look in his eyes unfurls a sweet heat low in Sakura’s belly. He leans forward, so that his ears just barely brush her right ear. “Why are you asking, Sakura-chan?” he whispers, mimicking her words from that first day in class. Sakura can’t fight her shiver at the heat in his voice.

Her mouth goes dry as her brain scrambles for a safe answer. “I…” Does she want to confess that she’s been thinking of him, or is that a very dangerous risk that she’s just not processing, with his scent and heat invading her very senses? What reservations did she even have about this, again?

Then, suddenly, the last voice on earth she wants to hear rips through the murmuring cacophony of the bar: “Sakura-chan?! Is that you?!”

_Naruto!_ Sakura rips her hand away from Kakashi’s as she swivels back towards the bar’s entrance. Her other blond best friend is standing there in a leather jacket, grinning and looking larger than life. He makes his way over to the bar, and, oblivious to the tense atmosphere, claps his arm over Sakura’s shoulders. “Fancy seeing you here! I thought you’d be tucked up in bed by now, dattebayo!”

“Naruto,” she half-hisses. She can not bring herself to look at Kakashi, who’s staring openly at her friend. “What are you _doing_ here?”

“Karin invited me out for a drink!” he all but bellows, pointing to the corner of the bar. Sakura turns to look at Naruto’s red-haired cousin, who hastily tucks away her phone and steadfastly doesn’t acknowledge her. How did she never notice that Karin was there?!

_Of course you didn’t notice,_ another part of her thinks morosely as she lets Naruto blather away into her ear. _You were too distracted by Professor freaking Hatake!_

Naruto finally notices her company and points in a rather uncouth manner. “Ah!” he blurts. “Kaka-senpai!”

“Naruto,” Kakashi acknowledges in his driest, drollest tone.

Sakura gapes. “You two… know each other?”

“My dad trained him at the police academy!” Naruto says cheerily. “Before he became mayor, that is. Old Man Kaka used to come over to our house for parties and get wasted!”

“Naruto,” Sakura scolds—though this newfound knowledge that Kakashi has yet _another_ connection to her life (no matter how tangential) is very interesting to her. As well as a bit too eerie for her to deny. Law of attraction, indeed.

Kakashi lightly raps the top of Naruto’s head with his knuckles. The young man blinks, suddenly transformed back to the wide-eyed boy of his childhood days, and Sakura has to laugh. “You haven’t changed, kid,” Kakashi drawls.

Naruto waves him off. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. Then he seems to realize that the two of them are actually sitting together, and regards them again with narrowed blue eyes. “Wait a second. What are you guys doing together?”

“I was just getting a drink,” Sakura blurts, before they can slide headlong into what promises to be some tiresome drama. “With Ino. Over there!”

She points, and while Naruto’s distracted, she nods goodbye to Kakashi and ducks away from the bar. Naruto follows her with a childish whine of _“Sakura-chan, you’re not going to buy me a drink?”_ —but even as she leads him back towards Ino, Sakura can feel the burning of Kakashi’s gaze on the back of her neck. The thought makes her pulse race, but she can’t afford to look. There are a few too many of their friends here at this bar tonight: they’re going to have to continue their conversation when they’re alone. And together. Probably in their classroom.

Sakura heaves a sigh and downs the rest of her drink. One thing’s for sure, she thinks miserably as she settles in next to Ino and Genma. She’s not going home with anyone but her own questions (and fantasies) tonight. Not that she would want to--not while she's under the watchful gaze of _Kaka-senpai_.

 

#

 

Naruto slides into the sticky pleather of the booth as Karin shuffles her things to make room for him. He sets his drink down onto a coaster and happens to glimpse an open chat window on her phone as it slides by: she’s sent a picture to someone. To… Sasuke?

“Oi, what are you doing texting the bastard?” Naruto asks without thinking. He’s picking up Karin’s phone before she even has a chance to answer, though she tries to snatch it back. As far as Naruto knows, Sasuke can’t stand being around his cousin, and has avoided her ever since they were kids. Since when did Karin even have his number?

Then he sees the picture that Karin sent, and his mouth falls open. It’s a picture of Sakura-chan and Kakashi-senpai sitting together at the counter he just left. Their hands are practically clasped, and Kakashi is leaning forward to whisper something into a blushing Sakura’s ear.

It’s all technically innocent, but something about the angle of the photo and the intimate air between Sakura and Kakashi makes the whole thing feel racy. Naruto continues to gape even as Karin finally grabs the phone back and cuffs him over the head for his snooping.

He finally finds his voice, enough to demand: “Why are you sending that to Sasuke?”

Karin looks away with a scowl. “I just thought he’d want to know what his ex was up to.”

“Buh,” Naruto says, because his brain shorts out and he doesn’t know what to say to that.

He’s not used to thinking of the bastard and Sakura-chan as _exes_ , let alone apart. They’ve always been welded to each other’s sides since he and Sakura-chan met Sasuke in seventh grade, and that connection only deepened when the other two started dating sophomore year (after years of mutual pining, no less). Naruto came home at the end of summer to find his world practically split apart: Sakura had left Sasuke in the scant few months he was gone, and Sasuke had transferred to a different university in Oto as a result.

_He actually just went and left_ , Naruto thinks, still sour about his best friend just packing up and moving instead of staying and trying to fix things with Sakura. But then, the bastard always was the type to withdraw when things got messy.

But _Kaka-senpai_? How long has Sakura been seeing the older man? Or has she at all? What if this is just Karin lying again—something that’s gotten her into trouble before?

He finally processes that his cousin has been sending pictures of Sakura with another man to the bastard—something that’s sure to catapult Sasuke into, well, whatever counts as depression for him—and forces his mouth to move. “You’re not helping them, Karin,” he begins. _If Sasuke thinks Sakura-chan has moved on, he’ll never try to get her back._

But he’s proven wrong when the phone in Karin’s hand suddenly buzzes. The two Uzumakis gape down at the screen, which reads: _Sasuke-kun._

Karin’s thumb automatically moves to answer it, then presses speakerphone. Even she seems dumbfounded by the fact that Sasuke actually called her. “Uh… hello?”

The voice on the other line is sharp, taut, and cold with anger: Sasuke at his worst. “Where are you?” he demands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN. Sasuke-kun appears! (I do love his character so he won't be portrayed as a total douchebag in this story! But he's definitely got his problems... like Sakura flirting with her professor?!)


	4. the ex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi meets Sasuke, and no one is very happy about it.

Sakura leaves with Naruto a little before midnight. Kakashi watches them go, and is awarded with a glance from Sakura, long-lashed and furtive, tossed over her shoulder as she steps out the door. He lifts his glass to her slightly in farewell, and she smiles. Then she’s gone.

Kakashi turns back to his drink. Genma, his ride, is still preoccupied with Ino: Kakashi figures he’s going to have to grab a taxi from the way their night is going. Sakura’s blond friend has been plastered to his friend’s side for hours, and he gives it a few minutes before they all but start humping.

Rin left some time ago with Asuma and Kurenai—though not before clamping a hand on the back of Kakashi’s neck in an unmistakable signal of _we’re going to talk about this._ Kakashi can only guess at what ‘this’ means, though he doesn’t doubt it has something to do with the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes (or hands) off of Sakura even with Rin watching beadily from the corner. He sighs and takes another sip of his beer.

 _Sakura_ , he muses as the last of his drink foams to nothing. She’s an enigma to him: at times bold and talkative, other times shy and coquettish. The TA who lectured him long and loud on timeliness in class is not the same girl who sat silently next to him at the bar and blushed like he’d put a hand up her skirt when their fingertips grazed. The only constant with her is how hopelessly attractive he finds her, in any mood. How stupidly ready he is to lean over and take any excuse to breathe in the intoxicating scent of her hair.

Her relationship to his old mentor’s son was… surprising to discover, to say the least. Though now that Kakashi thinks about it, he thinks he dimly recalls Naruto blathering on about a _Sakura_ as a small child—but who is to blame him for not finding the connection in the ramblings of a boy?

It seems, at least, that their bond isn’t romantic: the way Naruto touches Sakura is familiar, affectionate, like that of siblings or old friends—not possessive in the way that hallmarks an ongoing tryst or a harbored crush.

Wait a second, he thinks suddenly. If Sakura is Naruto’s age, then…

He drags a hand over his tired face. _You are going to hell, you old pervert._

He glances once more at Genma in the corner, jiggling a laughing Ino on his knee as she clings to him and shrieks. His old friend, at least, seems to have no problems with the age difference between himself and his new lover, though Kakashi doesn’t know if that’s simply because Genma is shameless. He almost envies the man’s carefree indifference to what others think of him, and considers asking him for advice.

Then: _How far have you sunk if you turn to Shiranui for advice?_ a voice inside his head mocks.  

“I’ll have another beer,” Kakashi says wearily to the bartender. Maybe he can drink himself into oblivion and forget all of this.

Then he’s broken out of his moody thoughts by another patron storming through the entrance of the bar. It’s getting late, and more people are streaming out of the bar than in.

His lungs lock up when he takes in the man standing in the doorway, looking around with an expression like thunder. Black hair, pale skin, imperious black eyes.

An Uchiha.

 _Uchiha Sasuke_ , Kakashi thinks. He has to bite his cheek to keep from standing.

He feels like the breath is being strangled from his chest as he watches the young Uchiha scion make his way over to a woman with fiery hair sitting in a corner booth. Kakashi turns back to the bar before anyone can notice his blatant staring, but he spends more time quieting the roaring blood in his head than he does finishing his drink. His hands tremble as they close over his glass.

He has not come in contact with another Uchiha since Obito died.

Obito, of course, came from a distant cousin-branch of no consequence, one with barely any “pure” blood: something he had lamented as a young boy but grew to be thankful for. In Obito’s last days, he and Kakashi had been assigned to investigate the Uchiha head family—Itachi’s family—for a litany of crimes, not least of which were racketeering, criminal enterprises, conspiracy, fraud, and premeditated murder. Most of the other minor family branches were involved.

Kakashi crumples a napkin and fights back the sudden fierce thumping in his temples. They’re the most powerful family in the five nations, the Uchiha: as old and prestigious as the Hyuuga and even richer than the Senju. But according to what Itachi discovered as a teen, their power was founded on darkness and corruption rather than a long-lived legacy. The Uchiha family business has a criminal underbelly: one that controls a yakuza organization with a thousand heads, stretching all the way from Konoha to overseas. Money laundering and illegal imports are chief amongst their crimes, but murder is not something they shy away from—as Obito discovered when he went head-to-head against his own clansmen in a gunfight.

Kakashi flinches away from the thought. The Uchiha case was his last case before he retired from the force and took up teaching. Even now, the sight of another member—resembling so sharply both Obito and the distant cousin who took his life—makes his stomach roil. He squeezes his glass hard enough to crack it and closes his eyes, dumping all thought and feeling out of his head. He takes a deep breath and counts silently to ten. It’s a technique his department-mandated counselor taught him, the day before he quit.

He should not be having this reaction, Kakashi knows, trying to suppress the hot and vinegary hatred that consumes his heart. Uchiha Sasuke is innocent of his family’s crimes. He knows this. Their investigation proved that the young man is or was oblivious to the yakuza side of things—just like his mother, Uchiha Mikoto. At the time, Kakashi had assumed that he was some adopted cousin, a distant nobody like Obito, ushered in and groomed to take over the “legitimate” business and replace Itachi as heir after the latter’s split. But now he wonders if Sasuke is actually Itachi’s younger brother. The one Sakura claims she used to know.

His eyes snap open again. What exactly is Uchiha Sasuke doing here, anyway?

His question gets an answer when he turns his head and sees Sasuke making his way over again. His hands are in his pockets, and though Kakashi knows he could take the young man in a fight, he tenses up anyway. He suddenly feels very naked without his gun.

He watches and forces himself to stay calm as Sasuke slinks up to the bar, eyes as dark and flinty as onyx. He stands a little away from Kakashi and glares at him like Kakashi is to blame for every wrong in his life.

Kakashi signals the bartender again and orders a whiskey. Beer suddenly feels too weak for a night like this.

After a tense moment Sasuke says, without preamble: “You’re Hatake Kakashi.” His voice is brittle and fricative like wind scraping against glass.

Kakashi forces himself to raise his glass in a light toast, crinkling his eyes in a smile like his heart isn’t clogging up his throat. “And you’re Uchiha Sasuke,” he replies. His attention is caught by the Uchiha’s young woman, slowly sliding up out of their booth with an anxious look on her face.

“You know who I am?”

Kakashi’s attention snaps back to Sasuke. He tries not to sneer. “Your face is plastered on every business magazine from here to Suna,” he answers. “You’re the heir to the Uchiha fortune.”

Sasuke scowls—Kakashi doesn’t know if the look is intimidating or petulant—before he takes a step closer, almost invading Kakashi’s personal space. Kakashi counts to three in his head this time and tells himself not to shatter his glass over the Uchiha’s head. His nose catches the scent of expensive cologne, and his gorge rises against his will again.

 ** _Kill,_** the dark, primal part of his mind whispers. His mind leaps to Obito’s bleeding, broken body and then away again. **_Kill, kill, kill. It’s his fault, what happened. Defend yourself._** Kakashi shoves the thoughts away with some difficulty.

“If you know who I am, then you know it’s best not to interfere in my affairs,” Sasuke says in a low, dangerous tone. His shoulders are tense and rigid, and his eyes are fiercely cold with anger. If Kakashi didn’t know better, he’d think Sasuke would deign to touch him, jabbing his finger into Kakashi’s chest. But for the moment, he holds himself aloof.

Kakashi raises a brow. “Your affairs,” he repeats. Is the boy under the mistaken impression that Kakashi is still on his case? Does that mean there’s an information leak within the police department? “Trust me, Sasuke-kun, I no longer have any interest in your affairs.”

For just a moment, the Uchiha’s fist clenches. Then he loosens it and lets it fall to his side. His face is so taut and white, Kakashi thinks; nothing like Obito’s wide boisterous one. “If that’s true, you’ll stay away from women who are far too young for you,” Sasuke says, very, very softly. “Vulture.”

And for just a moment, Kakashi sits there stupidly, not sure how to make head or tails of this seemingly nonsensical statement. _Huh,_ is all his once-prodigious brain sees fit to offer. _Huh._

Then both of them are arrested by an indignant feminine howl ripping from the corner of the room. Not from the Uchiha’s fiery-haired associate, but from the booth where Genma and Ino are sitting.

The tall blonde has climbed to her feet in a towering rage, and she’s pointing straight at Kakashi—no, at Sasuke. Hatred pours from her in a palpable wave.

“ _You_ ,” she snarls. Her face, usually beautiful and delicate, is suddenly warped like a banshee’s. “ _I know you don’t have the balls to show your goddamn face in this goddamn fucking bar right now. I know you did not come looking for your righteous ass-whooping tonight. I know you didn’t come to stalk Sakura like the fucking asshole you are!_ ”

Sasuke’s face, as impassive as all Uchiha’s are, still pales considerably. And, ominously, Ino begins to take off her earrings and hand them to Genma.

Kakashi thinks about Sakura’s best friend (and Genma's girlfriend) being hit with the heftiest lawsuit the world has ever seen, and turns wisely to Sasuke. “You’d better run,” he remarks.

And Sasuke makes a face before obeying, exiting the bar just as quickly as he came. The only thing that keeps Ino from pursuing him like a hound out of hell is Genma’s arm around her waist and his mutterings of, “Sweetheart, I’d love to let you go, but you know you can’t assault someone in front of a cop, right?”

Kakashi watches as Sasuke’s red-headed companion quietly takes her leave too, his tired (and slightly tipsy) mind working overtime to fit together the pieces of what just happened.

_Ino is Sakura’s best friend. Ino is angry at Sasuke. For ‘stalking’ Sakura. And he just told me to stay away from his affairs—from his woman, who’s apparently too young for me._

Kakashi hisses in his next breath as sharply as if he’s been punched.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _Oh._

Then: _Obito, what the hell have I gotten myself into?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter than usual, but I may not be able to update that quickly in the next week or so, so I figured I'd post what I have! This means the next chapter will still probably be in Kakashi's perspective--and things might get steamy from there! Thank you for everyone who left comments and kudos, they really encourage me to keep going with this story and not doubt myself! <3 What'd you think of Sasuke warning Kakashi off? 
> 
> And will Ino tell Sakura that Sasuke showed up at the bar? Will Kakashi have his doubts about getting involved, or has this renewed his resolve? Find out next time on gravity's collapse! (Dragon Ball Z voice)


	5. the distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a bit steamy, so be forewarned.

Kakashi wakes up after a patchy, restless night of sleep to find Pakkun sitting insistently on his chest.

He groans and tries to push the little pug off of him, but Pakkun just leans into his face and chuffs rather insistently. When Kakashi cracks open a bleary eye, he sees the grey light of dawn filtering in through his window. Then he groans again. It’s time to feed and walk the dogs.

Hot shower, shave, the quick but efficient brushing of teeth. The sting of aftershave slapped on his cheeks to wake him up. He brews a pot of coffee and pours the hard pellets of dog food into the bowls with a clean clatter: big portions the size of salad bowls for Bull and Akino, handfuls for the daintier Bisuke and Guruko. They’re all rejects from the K9 unit, all adopted by Kakashi over the years before he left. As the dogs feast, Pakkun continues to sit and watch Kakashi with a gimlet eye: whether judging him for the scent of alcohol on his discarded clothes or for sleeping in, Kakashi doesn’t know.

“I had a rough night, all right?” he tells the pug, who remains unimpressed. “I’m sorry for making you wait.”

When Pakkun continues to stare in silence, Kakashi elaborates: “There’s this… girl. Young woman. Sakura. She’s my TA at work.” He pauses, swallows. “She’s… _something else_ , in the best way possible. Beautiful, smart. Funny. Charming. In any other circumstance, I’d ask her out in a heartbeat.”

Pakkun sneezes.

Kakashi runs a hand through his untameable silver hair. “I know. It’s been a while since I even _thought_ about a woman in that way.” He grimaces. “But… she’s still a student. My TA, at that. I couldn’t.”

The coffeemaker buzzes, and he pours himself a cup of the too-strong, brackish liquid. “And as if her being fourteen years younger weren’t complicated enough… she has some sort of connection to the Uchiha family. To their heir, Itachi’s younger brother. You remember Itachi, don’t you?”

Now it’s Bisuke who looks up and coughs.

Kakashi sighs. “The brother, Sasuke, showed up at the bar last night. Warned me to stay away from Sakura. That should be enough of a sign, right? That the universe is kind enough to tell me it’s not a good idea?” He takes a sip of the coffee and burns the tip of his tongue, then swears. “It’s not a good idea. I know that. And I definitely can’t… won’t… have anything to do with the Uchiha. I barely kept my head with Sasuke last night.” He shakes his head, firmer now. “No, I can’t get involved with them. Not after what happened to Obito.”

He sighs again and pushes his hip away from the kitchen counter, pouring the rest of the coffee down the sink. It’s suddenly taken away his appetite, he thinks. He looks at Pakkun, who’s now pawing at his pant leg, and says, “Walk time?”

Pakkun looks at him dispassionately. Not that, then. But Kakashi glances at his kitchen clock and realizes he needs to get a move on if he wants to be on time for class.

He’s resolved to keep his distance from Sakura, he thinks, gathering the leashes from their hooks on the wall. Any Uchiha is bad news, and it just adds to the litany of reasons he should not be interested in her.

...But he can’t help but want to show up as early as possible anyway, to see her as soon as he can. It’s like an ache in his chest that won’t subside until he’s in her presence; an urge that he can’t suppress or refuse. He sighs. In under a week, he’s thrown out his reputation as a man who’s never been on time for anything in his life. If Genma or Gai knew, they’d have a conniption. This is decidedly _not_ the Kakashi they know and love (?). They’d always said nothing could change him—and here a pink-haired girl he’s known for scarcely three days has already done it, altered him, turned something inside of him like a key tumbling a secret lock.  

As he clips the leashes to the excited dogs, Kakashi can’t help but wonder what else his connection with Harun Sakura is going to cause him to lose.

He has to sever whatever this thing between them is, and fast.

 

#

 

Sakura struts into the classroom fifteen minutes before the students start to trickle in, wearing a noticeably-short pleated skirt and thigh-high boots. She catches his eye as she heads over to his desk to help sort the class’s first homework assignments—then grins at him.

“You’re so quiet, _Kaka-senpai_ ,” she remarks teasingly when he fails to greet her. “Have a hangover?”

Kakashi avoids thumbing the dark circles under his eyes and frowns at her: she was the reason why he couldn’t sleep, after all. “Not at all, Sakura- _chan_. What about you?”

 _Don’t ask her about things like this,_ the more pragmatic side of his brain tells him. _It’s not appropriate to discuss drinking with your teacher’s assistant._

Still, though, he argues. Sakura’s old enough. It’s not as if he forced her to drink with him.

She’s laughing, he finds when he steals a look up at her. Not the hearty cackle she sometimes unleashes when he’s told a good joke, her head thrown back and her eyes watering with mirth. Nor the restrained snort she does when she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making her laugh out loud.

This is a high, sweet, tinkling kind of laugh—the kind that splashes warmth all throughout Kakashi’s body. She says, “Not at all, senpai. I’m the great-niece of Senju Tsunade: I guarantee I could drink you under the table.”

Kakashi’s heard of Tsunade, the medical genius of Konoha and the director of Rin’s hospital. Sakura’s connections keep piling up.

Then, wincing away from the thought of a certain Uchiha connection, he changes the subject and says, “No need to call me senpai, Sakura. It makes me feel almost as old as ‘professor’ or ‘sensei.’ You can just call me Kakashi when we’re not in class.”

 _Idiot,_ his mind whispers. _What happened to keeping your distance?!_

Sakura seems to be thinking along the same lines, because she looks up suddenly and takes a step closer to Kakashi. He has to hold his breath to keep from leaning away. She’s wearing perfume—which she wasn’t wearing when they first met—something floral and heady wafting from her throat and… _from between her thighs?_

Kakashi wrenches his mind away from this dangerous thought just in time to hear Sakura breathe: “So we’re equals, then. Colleagues, you could say.”

Kakashi’s mouth slackens. Of all things, he was not expecting her to say this.

“I suppose so,” he says after an uncomfortable silence, clearing his throat awkwardly. “I am, of course, your superior, but…”

“But,” Sakura says, taking another step closer so that Kakashi has to press himself back against the hard edge of his desk. He notices suddenly that her sea-green eyes are rimmed with makeup, and that her gaze is both sultry and purposeful. His knees soften. “But… we’ve been flirting constantly over the past few days. So what does that mean about our work relationship?”

Now Kakashi gapes. His mind feels like a television set tuned to a channel it’s not supposed to receive: it’s all static and white noise. _Flirting?_

“I haven’t been flirting with you,” he hears his mouth say. Yes, that’s good. He’s not supposed to get involved with her like this. He has to be cold and unapproachable.

Sakura arches an eyebrow. She seems slightly surprised, but otherwise unperturbed. She draws even closer, until Kakashi can feel her breath against his throat. He tries not to close his eyes.

“Oh, really?” Sakura says, breathy now. “Because I could swear you have been flirting with me, Kakashi. You’re going to deny it?”

Kakashi stares up at the ceiling and clears his throat again. There’s a very interesting pencil stuck in a groove up there. “…I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sakura. Sakura-chan.”

She laughs. This time it’s a dry, brittle kind of laugh, and she says without rancor: “I see. My mistake, then.”

And she twirls on her heel and practically sashays back to her usual seat—making sure that Kakashi gets a good glimpse of her ass in that skirt and her milky-white thighs as she does. She takes her seat just as the first student walks in and calls, “Good luck with class today, Professor!”

He swallows and tries not to think about the familiar heat now simmering low in his belly. The dull ache at the bottom of his spine. He knew it was a mistake to show up early today.

 

#

 

Class starts shortly after that, and for the life of him, Kakashi can’t concentrate on anything but Sakura.

Outwardly, he’s droning on and on about lipids and nucleic acids and the biochemical cycle; but inwardly, he’s mentally fighting to keep his eyes from sliding to Sakura and losing the battle every single damn time.

And she knows it, the little temptress. Sakura keeps crossing and re-crossing her legs, shifting in her seat every time she wants to catch Kakashi’s attention. He knows she’s doing it on purpose, because never before has Sakura done this. She’s also never fixed her eyes on him in such a positively-seductive way, tracing the tip of her pen against her luscious lips over and over. He swears he even sees her pink tongue dart out one time, flashing against the tip of the pen, and he feels an accompanying pressure in his groin, the heat from his belly spreading throughout his body so that he feels he’s practically sweating.

He coughs and stumbles over his lecture and once even just stands there, staring blankly, while Sakura bites her plump bottom lip and lets the tip of her pen trail absently down her chest, down to the pale valley of her breasts…

Kakashi clears his throat, swallowing thickly. He has to take his seat behind his desk. “Everyone take out your textbooks and read chapter three in silence.”

Sakura practically cackles with triumph, with the satisfied way she bats her eyes at him. Kakashi has it in him enough to scowl at her, but Sakura just leans forward so that the shadow of her cleavage becomes more pronounced, and Kakashi realizes with both abrupt horror and heated arousal that she’s not wearing a bra.

Oh, _fuck._

The minutes tick by with torturous slowness, but he holds out long enough not to dismiss class early. Then, when the time comes, he stays seated at his desk, staring fixedly down at papers and pretending to grade while the classroom empties itself of students. Kakashi doesn’t have to look up to know that Sakura hasn’t left with the rest.

After a few moments, she sidles right up to him, bringing with her the maddening smell of strawberries.

“So,” she begins, leaning back against his desk so that his hand, resting on the surface, is mere inches away from her thigh. It’s a good thing he has a pen already in it, or he’d give in to the urge to place it on her knee.

“So,” Kakashi says, staring down hard at his papers.

Sakura angles her leg a little so that he has to see it out of the corner of his eye. “So… you were really never flirting with me?”

He sighs. He should have known she wouldn’t have dropped this line of questioning any time soon. “No, Sakura. I wouldn’t do that with a student.”

She edges closer. “But you didn’t know I was a student at first,” Sakura insists. “At least not _your_ student—which I’m technically still not. You flirted with me then.”

Kakashi feels a wild hot itch in his palms and has to clench his fist. “Sakura…”

She scoots just an inch closer before sliding her bottom up onto his desk. “I just thought,” Sakura says sweetly, “that maybe if you were interested, you’d like to know I’m wearing a thong today. My nicest one, in fact.”

Kakashi bites back a groan, and finally his self-control crumbles: he lets his pen inch forward to just barely graze her thigh, just as he’d reached his fingers for her at the bar. “Sakura…”

“Yes?” It comes out breathy, almost like a purr, and he wonders where she’s learned to act like such a _minx_. Sakura carefully, casually places one heel on his chair, close to his own thigh.

Kakashi watches the pen glide further up her leg like it belongs to someone else’s hand—holding his breath as she shivers and goosebumps break out across her porcelain skin. “If I didn’t know better,” he breathes, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, “I’d say you were trying very hard to seduce me.”

Sakura squirms a little as the tip of his pen meets the edge of her skirt, arching into the contact. “You can’t prove anything.” Her breath is a little uneven.

“Mm,” is all he sees fit to say, thoughtfully, as he lingers there. It would be so, so easy to lift the hem of her skirt, to catch a glimpse of this so-called thong… He can feel Sakura’s heat burning under the side of his hand, and in that moment he craves it so badly he feels it threatening to break the thread of his sanity. Two more seconds and he’s going to lose himself entirely. He can already feel his erection straining against the seam of his pants.

“Sakura,” Kakashi says thickly again. In her name comes many layers of meaning, ranging from _Why are you doing this?_ to _Are you sure?_

It’s that moment, of course, that Sakura decides to pull away, smoothing her skirt in a crisp and businesslike manner. “Well,” she says cheerfully, briskly, “of course I’d never dream of seducing you, Kakashi-senpai. Just so that we’re clear. I wasn’t flirting with you, either.” She throws him a coquettish smile over her shoulder. “I’ll see you Monday. Have a good weekend.”

Then she’s gone, taking her heat and burning green gaze and her maddening scent of sweetness and musk, and Kakashi puts his head on his desk and groans.

Uchihas or not, he decides, Haruno Sakura is definitely going to be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh, Kakashi's in trouble. What caused Sakura's sudden change of heart and boldness? Find out next chapter when we switch back to her!
> 
> Also, yes, I do think he'd be the type to talk out loud to his dogs! He's certainly not spilling his true thoughts to anyone else! Pakkun was pawing at his pant leg and saying, "You're being an idiot," but of course Kakashi couldn't tell.


End file.
